


The Choices We Make

by CaesiumDressing



Series: Huxloween stuffs [17]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Creepy, M/M, Monsters, Survival Horror, not bloody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:38:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaesiumDressing/pseuds/CaesiumDressing
Summary: Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux wake up in an unfamiliar place and search for a way to escape.
Written for Huxloween Prompt: Survival Horror





	

Cold. That was the first sensation that Hux noted as he began waking from the blackness he had been suspended in. Tile. That was the next thing he identified. Hux, wherever he was now, was lying on cold tile. He opened his eyes and found that he was having difficulty focusing. Everything around him was a grey blur. Hux closed his eyes again and reopened them. The room came more into focus. He sat up.

On all four sides he was surrounded by walls covered with nothing but white tile. The room itself was illuminated with a single emergency light in the middle of the ceiling and a large digital board on one wall with red numbers reading 104. Glancing around again he noticed that on the wall opposite the digital number board was a door with a rusted lock. He then heard a loud groan and some shifting. He turned toward the noise. On the floor about 10 feet from himself was the half sleeping form of Kylo Ren.

“Ren,” Hux called, his voice gravelly from disuse. How long had he been asleep? Ren groaned again and rolled over.

“Ren!” Hux called again, rasping harder and trying to get to his feet. As soon as he stood the world spun and he fell back to the cold tile, boneless. He let out a groan himself, rolling to his side to face Ren.

Hux rolled onto his stomach and discovered that not even getting to his knees seemed feasible. Instead he began dragging himself to Ren’s side across the tiles. When he reached Ren’s prone form he grabbed his shoulder and did his best to shake the man awake.

“Ren,” Hux croaked, rocking his own body back and forth to bring some sort of wakefulness to his companion. Suddenly Ren’s hand shot out a gripped Hux’s neck tight, cutting off his air supply. Hux tried to call Ren’s name, but it was futile.

Ren’s eyes were wide and wild. Hux recalled him waking up with Ren’s hands around his throat more than once, but seldom had Ren been in such a panicked state. Ren’s breath came in quick bursts, in out, in out; barely a pause. There was foam forming in the corners of his mouth and tears trailing from his eyes. Hux raised a hand and gripped Ren’s wrist, rubbing a circle on the underside trying to soothe. Hux felt the world beginning to dim. A moment later, just before everything went black, Hux felt himself dropped back to the tile. He took a deep breath.

“Hux?” Ren said, rolling Hux onto his back. “HUX?!” he shouted, pulling himself to his knees and picking Hux up to shake him. Hux batted at Ren’s hands, not quite strong enough to push him away, but enough to indicate that he wasn’t yet dead. Ren let him slump over and looked around the room himself. Hux found that he could at least sit.

“What is this place?” Ren asked, glancing around at the room they were in and back to Hux. Hux shrugged, throat still dry and damaged to the point that he felt that he couldn’t even speak. Ren stood to look around the room. After stumbling a bit, surely under the same influence that Hux was, he regained his footing and went to check the door of the room. Putting a little weight behind it he tried both to push and pull it open. It didn’t budge.

Ren placed his hand on the cold tile wall to the left of the door and began to circle the room, as if he were looking for secret panels. Hux pounded his fist on the floor and Ren stopped to look at him.

_What the hell are you doing?_ Hux thought at him, scowling. Ren looked around.

“Well, that door is locked and I’m not seeing a key just sitting around. I was thinking that there may be a hidden panel,” Ren said, beginning to circle the room again.

_That’s nonsense,_ Hux thought at him. _Why would our captors, whoever they are, go to the trouble of hiding-_

Ren’s hand ran across a square of tile and there was a click, a section of the wall about two feet by three feet swung open on the far wall. Ren looked at Hux and raised his eyebrow. Hux chose not to think anything back.

Ren crossed the room and searched inside the newly opened section of wall. He pulled out a messenger bag and opened it. His eyes lit up and he rushed to Hux’s side. He sat on the floor next to him and handed Hux a sealed bottle of water. Hux accepted it gratefully and took a long swig. Ren pulled out another for himself and drank.

“What else is in the bag?” Hux sputtered as he finished the bottle. His voice was still hoarse, but at least he could talk. Ren flinched at the sound knowing that a fair amount of that rasp was his fault, lowering his head he shifted the contents of the bag around as if he wasn’t completely sure that he had already seen everything in the bag.

“Another four bottles of water, some ration bars, some bacta packets, two bottles marked health drink, a flashlight, and, what’s this?” He said, pulling out a small red satin bag. The bag itself was unmarked, but as Ren shifted it Hux saw there was something inside. Ren untied the ribbon keeping the top closed and upended the bag. A large brass key clattered to the floor. Hux raised his eyebrow.

“Do you suppose that key is to the door?” He croaked. Ren stood and helped Hux to his feet. Hux was steadier on his feet this time around but he still felt a little woozy so he clung to Ren the best he could.

“Only one way to find out,” Ren responded, slinging the messenger bag over his shoulder and walking over to the door, Hux in tow. He lifted the brass key and fit it in the lock. It turned smoothly, despite the rusted appearance of the lock itself. The door swung out on its hinges to reveal a hallway only lit by emergency lights. Ren went to grab the key and pull it out of the lock, but in the moment since the door had opened the key had crumbled into ash. Hux clutched his arm.

“What the hell is going on here, Ren?” he asked, trying as best as he could to keep the fear out of his voice. Ren shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he whispered, glancing at the ash coating his palm. He brushed it off on his pants quickly, as if trying to wipe away something particularly foul. He looked again, the ash was gone. He shivered and looked at Hux.

“Let’s get moving, shall we?” Hux said, venturing to loosen his grip on Ren’s arm slightly to try to stand on his own. He seemed steady enough. There was only one way to go, so Ren and he stood shoulder to shoulder and moved forward together.

As they went deeper into the building they began encountering door after door. They tried each one and for the most part the knob would turn, but the pieces inside the lock would shake around and give no real resistance. It seemed that they were almost all broken. That was, until they came to one where the knob didn’t turn and it was clearly locked. Hux rattled it, glancing around.

“Dammit!” he cried, kicking the door, turning and leaning against it.

“Well, there is still some hallway left. Maybe another of these doors opens?” Ren offered moving a little down the hall. Hux slumped his shoulders and followed him. There were another series of broken locks until they came to a door that opened with no resistance. It swung inward and they stepped through.

It looked like a common area in a starship. Hux looked around him, narrowing his eyes. It looked strangely familiar but he couldn’t place it. He turned to Ren.

“Hey Ren do yo-,” he started but the moment he caught sight of Ren standing in the doorway he stopped. The man had gone stark white, as if he had seen an unfriendly beast too close to run from. Ren’s lips were quivering and his eyes were like glass. He feel to his knees. Hux moved to kneel at his side.

“Ren?” he said, resting a hand lightly on Ren’s shoulder. “Where are we?” Hux asked.

Ren muttered but the sound was impossible to make out. Hux couldn’t make it out. His eyes were reddening.

“Ren? I don’t understand, you need to,” Hux continued.

“THE FALCON!” Ren roared, tears cascading from his eyes and down his face. Suddenly Hux understood where he had seen this before. Ren had shared some of his fond memories of boyhood and often times this ship was the setting. Before Ren’s family had begun to distance themselves from him, he would spend hours in this exact place playing Dejarik with his father and learning how to fly. Hux sat back on his heels in stunned silence. Minutes passed and Ren just sobbed. Hux let him.

After a long while Ren’s sobbing became sniffles and he moved to stand. Hux stood with him, his knees cracking from having knelt for so long. Ren began shifting around the cabin, running his bare fingers over the consoles aimlessly. Hux approached the Dejarik board but tripped over some debris. He crashed into the side of the table and fell to the floor. Ren rushed to him, checking his head for wounds. Before he could help Hux back to his feet the board lit up. Over the board floated the face of a man, one that did not look unlike Kylo Ren. It was the young Han Solo.

“Leia,” the holorecord began. “I’m so happy to hear Ben is being good. I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. With this holorecord you’ll find a gift for Ben. I tried to wrap it, but you know me. I’m too used to hiding things in hollow consoles. I’m sure it’ll be just what Ben needs. I’ll be back soon, Princess.” Han said, smirking and clicking the holorecorder off. Hux and Ren sat in silence for a moment, Ren staring into space.

“Ren?” Hux whispered. There was no direct response from the man, but he began to move toward the consoles. He made a beeline straight for one toward the edge of the space and began running his fingers around the edge. Within moments the little screen panel on the console popped open. There was a box inside wrapped in shining red paper. The wrapping job was not a particularly good one, creased and crumpled at some places. Regardless, there had been some thought put into it. Ren carefully peeled the paper away from the box. He opened it and withdrew a silver key with a cross on the handle end. It looked much like Ren’s lightsaber.

Before Hux could say anything he heard a shifting from somewhere deeper in the ship. Ren’s head snapped up and a moment later a bolt of red light barely missed his side. There was a roar from deep in the ship. Shifting from the darkness was a mass of scraggly hair, teeth, and eyes and no clearly defined shape. The thing roared again, sliding across the floor, its maw opening and shooting another red bolt.  The hair slithered forward from the mass and made a grab at Hux’s ankle.

Hux danced away and grabbed Ren, who was standing transfixed on the thing. Ren seemed to snap out of it and followed Hux, slamming the door behind them as they ran out. They could hear the thing slamming itself against the door over and over, the wood cracking and creaking with each slam. They had to hurry, before that thing broke down the door.

They reached the locked door and slipped the key inside. The door unlocked and swung inward just as the door they escaped through gave way. The mass of black hair roared and rolled into the hallway. A blaster bolt flew down the hall towards them and they ducked into the open door, slamming it behind them. There was sudden silence. The shambling of the creature and its roars had ceased. Hux slumped against what he expected to be a doorjamb but found it to be solid brick. He glanced over his shoulder and found the door had been replaced with solid wall. He shook his head and looked forward.

They were outside. That was to say, they were in an outdoor area. The walls were beige brick from what Hux could see. The ground was little more than packed dirt and sand.  Ren was leaning against the wall next to him, once again looking as white as a sheet. He reached into the messenger bag and fished out the flashlight. He clicked the button and illuminated their immediate surroundings.

The best Hux could figure is that they were in a courtyard of some kind. Moving around the area they were able to find a door, locked of course, and not much else. That is, until Ren moved toward the center.

In the very center of the courtyard stood a gray stone pedestal. The top of the thing had the shape of a right hand. There is something written on the front in a language that Hux could not read, but judging by the look in Ren’s eyes he knews just what it said.

“What is it Ren?” Hux asked, his voice echoing louder than he expected around the walls of the courtyard. Ren looked over his shoulder at Hux.

“It’s in ancient Sith script. It says great power requires great sacrifice,” Ren’s voice was dead. He shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he whispered slumping forward. Suddenly a side of the pedestal fell open and a new pedestal slid out. On top was Ren’s lightsaber, looking as it did before the scavenger girl destroyed it. Written in common on the new one is “Choose your destiny.”

Suddenly the ground shook and the air filled with a high pitched keening. Shadows shambled from the corners of the courtyard, towards Ren. The whining grew louder, Ren’s eyes going wide.

“No!” he shouted, glancing at the saber and the pedestal with the hand print.

The shadows swept past Hux, leaving cold trail, but not precisely touching him. They were all congregating on Ren.

“You’re dead!” Ren screamed, dodging away from the figures. “I killed you all to prove my worth,” he screamed again, backing up and bumping into the pedestals. For a moment he considered his choice. He grabbed the saber and ignited it. The keening became deafening, more and more shadowy figures converging on Ren as he slashed at them. When one fell, two appeared in its place. Ren was screaming as they engulf him.

Hux backed up against one of the courtyard’s walls and watched in absent horror as his companion was swarmed by the black mass, unable to do anything to stop them. Hux stayed pressed up against the wall for some long moments before he realized the black mass has dissipated and the keening of the shadows and Ren’s screams can no longer be heard. He went to where he saw Ren fall.

Ren lay there, eyes plastered open in fear, mouth twisted in a scream. He was already cold to the touch, no doubt from the black mass that assaulted him. The lightsaber had been extinguished at some point, and cracked in half. Glittering between the halves was a golden key. Hux knelt to pick it up. He slid his fingers over Ren’s frozen open eyes and closed their lids. He stood, beaming the flashlight around, checking for more shadows. There are none.

He turned once more to Ren’s body, tears falling freely. He could not bring himself to say goodbye, he felt like he didn’t deserve to. He stood back and watched Ren die, helpless to do anything. He turned away and ran to where they saw the locked door in the courtyard.

Hux slipped the key into the door and turned it. The door swung open and he steped through. The first thing he noticed was the smell of dust and paper books. It smelled as if he stepped into an old office of some sort. He beamed the flashlight around and began walking counterclockwise around the space. It wasn’t long before he came to a desk. He idly flipped at the lamp there and found that it works. Once it illuminated he looked around again. His mouth dropped open and he looked back at the desk. The placard reads “Commandant Brendol Hux.” Hux stumbled back and looked around again.

This was his father’s office at the academy. How could he end up in his father’s study? Arkanis had no desert, and his father’s study was on the third floor. Hux balled his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into his palms and looked around again.

He’d never been in here as a boy. He was barely two when the New Republic had taken Arkanis and his father and he escaped into the unknown regions. He’d only known this from his father’s pictures and stories. He could almost hear him lecturing in his mind.

“Armitage,” Brendol would say to his son. “Do you understand what it is to truly be a soldier?” He’d been told over and over by his father in his youth that he was scraggly, scrawny, and useless. Brendol had been harsh in the interest of building character, or so he said. Armitage, however, took it more to be that his father didn’t have the capacity to love. The man didn’t love Armitage’s mother enough to bring her with them.

“Who was she, Dad?” Armitage asked once, he was thirteen and had heard the other boys snickering about him being a bastard. A useless bastard at that. His father told him the truth in a matter-of-fact way. Armitage had been horrified. Hux’s nannies always said that his mother died on Arkanis but Hux realized then that she’d died because she’d been left behind. Armitage raged and screamed and tore his father’s small office in their home apart. Brendol sat and watched it happen, never moving an inch.

When Armitage finally collapsed onto the floor of the office sobbing and tired his father pulled something out of the upper right side of his desk and came over to him. He didn’t say anything, only handed him a picture in a frame, one that hadn’t been out for him to break. Armitage remembered staring at it silently. It was a woman holding a redheaded newborn in her arms. Armitage looked at Brendol, eyes questioning. Brendol offered no explanation. He just stood.

“Clean this up,” he said, turning to walk out of the room. “We will never speak of this again.”

That was the last time Armitage ever asked about his mother. He had kept that photo with him wherever he went. Even now, he was sure it was back on the Finalizer in the upper right-hand drawer of his desk. It was the only thing he’d taken with him in the collapse of Starkiller besides Ren. Something clicked for Hux then, he stood and went to the desk. He pulled at the drawer. It popped open and inside was that picture, in a frame. He lifted it out finding it rather heavier than a picture and frame should be. He turned it over and opened the back.

A silver key clattered out onto the floor in front of him. Hux leant over and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands. He glanced behind him and noticed a door with a shining silver lock. He began to move toward it but stopped after a moment, glancing back at the desk. He went back and picked up the picture and frame, slipping it into the bag before he left.

He slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open and he stepped through. He was now on a deserted city street. It was still dark so he flipped on the flashlight and began walking. It didn’t seem to matter. The same six or seven store fronts repeated. He recognized them from the pictures he had seen of the decadent streets of the New Republic. He sneered and continued walking.

Suddenly a row of holoscreens in the window of one of the shops illuminated. He stared at the footage. It was grainy and blurry but it looked familiar. After a few moments he realized it was a recording of his speech before the firing of Starkiller. The voice was distorted but he could hear the speech in his head. He had spent hours on it. He’d been looking forward to firing the weapon he’d spent his life working on, but he felt goosebumps crawl down his back remembering Ren telling him about the screams of the lives of five planets being snuffed out in the Force. It was chilling. Suddenly the speech was coming through speakers with no distortion behind him, he turned.

There it was, in all its glory on a huge screen in the square, high for all to see; his voice echoing down the empty streets, filling his ears. He walked toward it. Directly below the screen were two vending machines. One was on a machine that contained his special-made blaster, the other held a simple white cloth on a dowel, a flag to surrender. He heard a rumbling and the sky flashed red. He spun around.

Down each of the cross streets were humanoid figures that seemed to be made of flame and molten rock. They began wailing, their screams overtaking his own booming voice from the speakers in the square. Hux covered his ears trying to shut out the wailing and stared around. They were moving in closer, reaching out to him, screaming the screams of the dead.

“No!” he shouted, unable to hear himself. “I was only doing what I had to!” he screamed, pleading with the figures. “The galaxy cannot abide the disorder and corruption of the Republic! You were collateral damage for a greater tomorrow.”

The wailing continued, they were groping forward, the crush of them just yards away now. Hux spun around. In glowing lettering above the machines was a simple instruction: “Make your choice.” A button had illuminated under each item. Without hesitating he pressed the button for his blaster. It fell into the tray at the bottom and he retrieved it. He turned and began firing.

Bolt after bolt struck the flaming souls, and they fell one by one, cooling and becoming ash. The sky glowed red above him and they kept coming. Hux pulled the trigger again and again but finally he found that he was out of shots. He shoved his hand in the pack but he was too late. He felt one of the screaming creatures wrap its burning hand around his arm. They piled onto Hux and he screamed, his own screams blending with those of the souls he’d damned. And with that Hux was gone.

* * *

 

Leia Organa stood in a hidden room overlooking another with white tile walls and watch the men drag her son and General Hux into the room. They were drugged every time they failed the trial and brought back to try again. Leia couldn’t watch it after the first time. Leia had pled for her son’s life, but she had never expected this. They told her that if he could ever show remorse as opposed to striking out he’d be released. Hux as well, if he ever chose to surrender to the souls of the damned they projected in those empty streets he’d be sent to a Reformed Republic prison to live out the rest of his days in the relative peace of solitary confinement. Leia swayed nauseated as the counter on the wall rolled over to 105. As the red-haired General began to stir on the floor below she turned and left the control room.

**Author's Note:**

> Come over to my [tumblr](http://garbageismydomain.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi!


End file.
